Rubrics » Bridging News
Capturing the Commanding Heights
Half a century ago the German sociologist Helmut Schelsky succinctly dissected the political strategy of left-wing radicals in West Germany and the West generally. His essay, “The New Strategy of Revolution,” remains one of the best summaries of a remarkably successful ongoing strategy of cultural subversion by way of a “long march through the institutions.” As a consequence, our present day is dominated by what Michael Polanyi called moral inversion – and Roger Scruton called a culture of repudiation – which redefine the common ethos and the rules of public discourse. Scruton argued that the West is characterized by “a political process generating corporate agency, collective responsibility, and moral personality in the state.”[1] Citizens of the West live in what he calls a Personal State, which protects their rights wherever they go. The question today is whether the new strategy of revolution is converting the Personal State into something akin to a reeducation camp and turning citizens into subjects. More
The Reality of War
The 24th of February, the Russian invasion of Ukraine rather slowly awoke Europe to the forgotten reality of war. Despite the numerous armed conflicts all over the continent and in the world at large in which Westerners have been involved during the last three or seventy decades, Europeans in particular have forgotten the primary meaning of war. War as part of human nature, war as politics, war as a social state. This is due to something more than the usual dose of “Western hypocrisy” and double standards. Far from constituting an irrational choice, as narrow self-interested ideologies suggest, war has generally been viewed throughout most of human history as a character building activity on par with many others of a more peaceful nature, in which individuals were cultivated and through which societies were forged, maintained, expanded or destroyed. The paradox of contemporary Europe is therefore not that it denies war, its political and social function, but that the European identity is nothing but the product of the repressed memory of war. This is why it takes longer for Europeans to absorb the new reality: they must not only look at the facts around them, but also look inside them and accept their true selves as well. More
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality: A Big Problem for Romania
Decades of anti-capitalist propaganda have left deep traces in Romanian collective psyche, which causes poverty, unemployment, corruption, etc., to have an air of verisimilitude to capitalism, not to the reminiscences of communism.The word “capitalism” comes from “capital”, which derives from “caput, capitalis”, meaning heads of cattle (lat.), once identified with wealth, in general. It is first attested in 1850 in the writings of Louis Blanc, a French politician and historian of socialist political orientation.[1] However, it remained little used, being ignored even by Karl Marx in his famous book, Capital, published in 1867. The word penetrated with full force into political discussions only at the beginning of the 20th century, namely as an antonym for socialism. In scientific circles, it was validated by Werner Sombart’s brilliant book, Der Moderne Kapitalismus (1902). Although it was not used by Marx, this word was quite naturally incorporated into the Marxist conception, according to which the history of mankind comprises the following social arrangements (modes of production): the primitive commune, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and communism (called in its first stage “socialism”). The word “capitalism” is therefore polysemic, being used in politics and ideology as well as in scientific language. Hence, probably, the ambiguity of its destiny. More
GfK: Romania, 51% below the European Purchasing Power Average in 2022
Romania had a spending potential of €8,017 per capita in 2022. This is 51% below the European average and puts the Romanians in 31st place. Compared to the previous year, the gap between counties with high and low purchasing power has widened even further.In the top 10 ranking, Bucharest is clearly leading the field with a per capita purchasing power of €15,482. This means that the inhabitants of the capital have more than 93% more purchasing power than the national average and 3.6 times more than the inhabitants of Vaslui County, which has the lowest purchasing power in terms of spending and saving. Here, disposable net income is just €4,728, which is around 53%of the national average. More
China’s Economic Role Amid the Prolonged War in Ukraine
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, China’s position on the war has been a topic of discussion. Unlike Western countries’ consistent condemnation of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, China’s attitude has been inconsistent. At the beginning of the war, the spokesperson of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, challenged the Western media’s use of the word “invasion” and called Russia’s activity a “special military operation.” While refusing to condemn Russia, China also withheld strong backing for its former communist ally. Although China abstained from several votes at the United Nations that opposed Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, it did not join Russia in voting against a UN Human Rights Council resolution that condemned Moscow either.[3] In addition, China affirmed its support for the territorial integrity of sovereign states, including Ukraine, and called for the Minsk Agreement”[4] to be implemented to resolve the war.[5] Nevertheless, China continued to hold military exercises with Russia while President Biden was visiting the region in May 2022. [6] More
The American Elections Confirm the Course Will Be Maintained in Foreign Policy
During the recent midterm congressional elections, I had the opportunity to observe a polarized nation at the ground level while in Washington, DC. This was a competition in which political affiliation has become an element of identity as strong as, if not stronger than, race or religion. The Republicans talked about inflation and mismanagement of the economy, while the Democrats marched on the emotional message of the democracy under attack. In such a polarized society, there are no strong victories – the party in the White House has a habit of losing in the first midterm elections after the presidential campaign promises of rivers milk and honey fail to materialize; the Republican tsunami did not materialize, either, bypassing the Democrat majority in the Senate and winning a very small majority in the House of Representatives. In practice, the Republicans can only frustrate the Democrats. Any achievement in the next two years will have to come through bipartisan means, at a time of peak political and societal tension. Like the presidential elections, the congressional elections ended up being decided by the skin of one’s teeth, generating precarious and contrary majorities, deepening the political decay of the American state. More
How Time Flies in Cambridge and Why It Matters
I spent the 2022 winter holidays in Cambridge, UK. When we say Cambridge, we Romanians think primarily of the university, the University of Cambridge, although our Romanian mental image of a university is very different from theirs. And the fact that when we hear Cambridge we think most often of Cambridge, the English city on the River Cam, is yet another proof of our Eurocentrism. Why? Because Cambridge, UK [1], is different from Cambridge, MA [2], which is the seat of another great university, that of Harvard University, or Cambridge, Ontario, Canada [3]. For fun or information, there seem to be about fifteen places named Cambridge around the world [4]. More
Time – Resource and Currency
Although it is a work that appears – at first glance – to be very analytical, the essence of this book is a relatively simple one – a practical vision for a better world.Continuing the ideas expressed in another book by the same author (For a Golden Romania [Pentru o Românie de Aur – in Romanian] in which the vision of the Romanian economist Anghel Rugină was brought back to light, especially regarding the issue of money – that should be completely backed in precious metals – and monetary systems – either in place, historically, or theoretically imaginable), in Time – Resource and Currency [Timpul – Resursă și monedă – in Romanian], Octavian Bădescu delves into a deep inquiry on the nature of money and its logical and practical essence, while exhorting readers to return with him to the “fundamentals” of economic reasoning. More
Fight (Book) Club
The war in Ukraine is the starting point for the creation of a new global structure. The process might last several decades. For the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West is truly faced with a united and purposeful adversary whose endgame is yet to be determined.In order to know how the future world will look, it is helpful to have some ideological fountainhead in order to be able to understand the ideological structures of the current major players. The existing philosophical backbones will be used to define new relationships on the global stage. More
Romania, Above Eight EU Member States in Terms of Actual Individual Consumption
In international comparisons of national accounts data, such as GDP per capita, it is desirable not only to express the figures in a common currency, but also to adjust for differences in price levels. Failing to do so would result in an overestimation of GDP levels for countries with high price levels, relative to countries with low price levels. More
The Planet on a Collision Course
The development of science fiction and the Space Race in the mid-twentieth century turned mankind’s attention to the stars, fuelling our collective imagination about the wonders and threats that may lie beyond the skyes, from alien contact to deadly asteroids. The past few years, however, have served as an unkind reminder that our world’s direst challenges come not from the vastness of space, but from within the bounds of our planet. The Covid-19 pandemic that began in early 2020 disrupted the usual comings and goings of societies everywhere in the world, forcing them to face a challenge such as had not been seen in over a century. This has caused significant economic, social and political upheaval due to controversies surrounding the virus, the restrictive measures taken by the government to contain it, and the vaccination campaigns undertaken. Supply chain disruptions, unemployment, rising inflation, grim predictions of a harsh economic recession, opportunistic political infighting, overloaded medical infrastructures, rising Euroscepticism and social divisiveness are some of the more visible effects of the pandemic. More
The Illegitimate Public Debt – A Short Conceptual Discussion
The public debt formation is the direct effect of a causal mix containing at least the following factors: a) the weak capacity of the private sector to push the economy towards its potential, that requires state intervention by increasing the public expenditures beyond the internal possibility to cover such an increase (in a keynesian or post-keynesian pattern); b) the weak capacity of the public sector (state/government) to collect the taxes and other revenues in society (no matter that this incapacity is due to incompetence or a competent corruption), that requires an alternative source of public revenue, public debt (either internal or external); c) the illegitimate exuberance of the politicians (either Parliament or, especially, the Government) with regards to indebting the nation within a populist (that is, in an unjustified way, without mentioning its unsustainable character) framework of politics (no matter the reasons for such a populism). More
